


gyre of vultures

by tiend



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Rescue, and spaceships with opinions, beware of strange women in power armour, couldn't just let him die, no he's not going to die later either
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 00:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15829863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiend/pseuds/tiend
Summary: Hardcase watches his brothers fly away safely. It's not a bad death, and it'll be a great explosion. But it doesn't happen: the nacelle's floating off by itself down the centre aisle, away from the power reactors. When he goes for it, he gets tackled to the floor by a blur of nothing that seems like it wants to hurt him personally. Until it doesn't, and he's slung over someone's shoulder - yeah, there go the cracked ribs - and taken off the supply ship by something large, green, and faceless.





	gyre of vultures

Sparrow was running back with the stolen goods when her suit picked up the whoosh of missiles, quickly followed by the detonation. The supply ship rocked under her, and her heart rate picked up; it could’ve been coming from inside the superstructure. There was another whoosh-boom, closer this time; the sound and blast waves hit her nearly simultaneously. Her suit popped up a positive ID for droid blaster fire, but had separated out some untagged type of ordnance. Something a bit more percussive. Whatever was going on, she definitely didn't want to be a part of it. She abandoned the trolley of supplies, and engaged the suit's chameleon field to bolt for the Lammergeier, and home.

She rounded a corner to find that the droids were trying to take out strange fighter aircraft that someone - the white armoured soldiers - had flown right into in the superstructure. The suit tagged them as belonging planetside, not to these soldiers - maybe they’d stolen them? In any case, they were firing on the ray shield blocking the door to the power plant, but if whatever had caused the initial explosion hadn't done it, the heavy machine guns attached to the front of the fighters weren't likely to. Crazy bastards. At least she couldn't see any of the sword fighters, and her suit hadn't tagged any of the noise as being due to their odd weapons; she didn't like being around them. They moved too fast, and too strange.

The soldiers in white armour looked to be taking heavy damage now, and one of them abandoned their ship, and the pilot’s shield, making a beautiful bright target of themselves. They detached a silver teardrop from one of the pylons of their craft, and started pushing it manually into the body of the ship. Whatever was going on, she had to get out of here, as soon as possible. Her ship was currently lying dark against the supply ship's hull; they’d have to risk detection to make a quick exit.

“Lammy, wake up. Light up for immediate evac.”

"Sparrow? Sitrep?'

"Lammy, lights up, immediate evac, enroute."

"Copy that, Sparrow."

She didn’t care much who won here, but she’d be damned if she was going to get sideswiped by either side. Her exfil path went right through the ship’s power plant, so she shadowed White Armour as close as she dared, planning to accelerate past them as soon as they reached an open area. She'd just lined up to overtake before realising the suicidal fucker had just launched the nacelle right at one of the many reactors.

Sparrow launched herself at it with all the momentum she had. It was heavier than White Armour had made it look, and she folded around it before getting her feet under her and pushing, heaving it away from the reactor. If she'd known they were going to show up, she wouldn't have bothered to plant explosives herself. More importantly, she wouldn't still be on this ship.

White Armour been watching their companions fly out, and leave them behind. They hadn’t even noticed her last second save, yet. So much for going out with a bang, guess I ruined your big moment there, she thought, keeping an eye on them as she kept the nacelle moving away.

As she watched, they suddenly stiffened, apparently having realised they weren't dead, and turned around. They weren’t wearing a helmet; Sparrow had a gratifyingly clear view of their face as they noticed the nacelle bobbing away down the center aisle, apparently by itself. 

But they hadn’t even closed their mouth before they went for it again. Sparrow abandoned the nacelle to tackle them to the floor. White Armour tried to roll against the impact, but couldn’t see her; she was on top of them, using her weight and leverage to pin them down. They bucked, and she slid one leg behind their knees, the other on top, and locked her ankles together. Left arm went across their neck to put pressure down across the windpipe. White Armour had both hands up, trying to grasp at their invisible attacker, but it was too late. She wrenched their left arm up and smashed their wrist to the floor, holding it there with her right hand; one more point of contact down. White Armour started punching her in the side of the head with their remaining fist, but for all their strength the blows were noticeably weakening from the lack of oxygen. She ignored it; her helmet could handle the impacts easily.

The Lammergeier chose that moment to tap her helmet feed. The video was almost entirely taken up by a blood-darkened face, eyes scrunched shut, mouth open and gasping for air. Sweat shone from their bald scalp and rolled down the blue inked skin. Alarmed, the ship scanned previous footage.

“Sparrow. Sparrow. Sitrep. Sitrep,” the Lammergeier boosted its volume as it spoke.

“Not getting vapourised. Suicide bomber.”

“Sparrow. That is not a droid.”

“No shit. They bleed just fine.” Bruises were blooming under her forearm.

“Sparrow. That is a human.”

“A human who was going to kill us!”

“Sparrow. It is a human male that no one will expect to have survived. They would have killed themselves as well as us. Sparrow.”

“Get to your fucking point, ship? Busy here.”

Gentler now. “Sparrow, no one will miss them.”

Oh. She threw herself off them. They - he - was still flat on his back, hands now wrapped protectively around his throat. Fuck, she hoped she hadn’t crushed his windpipe. She made herself move, stagger, get to her splayed feet.

“Sparrow. His companions will want this vessel to explode. We cannot risk their return. Our engines are hot.”

“Copy that, Lammy. Two inbound, scramble.”

She crouched down next to White Armour, and slid her arms under him, hoisted him up and half-threw him over one shoulder. She sacrificed the chameleon field for a power boost to the leg articulations, and began to sprint.

The tac droid had finally sent some droids to investigate. Sparrow slewed around them easily, eyes fixed on her bright orange exfil line, chasing it down back to the Lammergeier.

She bolted down their parasite umbilicus, and “Go go go!” she shouted, curling around White Armour protectively as she went down on her knees to slide right into her ship’s open airlock. The Lammergeier slammed the doors shut behind her and made a hard burn, sacrificing the umbilicus to make a faster getaway.

“Remote detonation in three, on my mark. Three. ” said the ship. Sparrow rolled, taking White Armour with her, putting herself between him and the explosion, cupping his head protectively in the palm of one oversized hand.

“Two. One. Mark.”

She waited, tense. White Armour began to struggle, and she clamped one arm down around his ribs, not very hard, but enough to be a warning. He stilled. The ship shook a little, nothing like she’d been afraid of, and then it was over.

“Sparrow, we are clear. The hull has not detected any impacts.”

She relaxed in one long exhale at the announcement. They’d lost the chance to resupply, but she was alive and the Lammergeier was undamaged. Their existence was probably still a secret: the supply ship was a debris field, and White Armour was theirs.

“Nice work with the doors, Lammy,” she said, still lying on the floor. “That was unpleasantly close.”

“Replacing the umbilicus will be difficult but not impossible,” said the ship. “However, I would suggest taking our guest down to the medsuite immediately. The extent of his injuries is uncertain, and it would indicate good will if we offer to treat them.”

“Got some ground to make up, considering I nearly killed him.”

“You also saved his life.”

“I don’t know. He seemed to think I was interrupting something important. Here goes nothing, anyway.”

Sparrow was well over six feet high in the suit, easily towering over White Armour, who had stubbornly climbed to his feet as soon as she’d let him go. He was leaning on the wall a little, watching her closely. She wasn't sure what he was making of her in the armoured suit, all mottled fractals of greens and greys and blues, the proportions skewed and deformed, with no visible face. Still, taking it off now seemed risky. White Armour was going to have to cope.

She held one hand - at least that looked mostly humanoid - out to him, slowly. He looked at it, but didn't otherwise move. 

“Open the inner doors?”

They irised open, and she stepped backwards over the threshold, facing him and making slow beckoning motions with her hands. He looked at her in disbelief and stayed exactly where he was.

“Stubborn.” She couldn't blame him.

Sparrow toggled the audio line open and tried to think in Basic.

“Are you damage? Can help.” 

White Armour actually rolled his eyes. 

“He understood that,” said the Lammergeier. “I do not think he found it believable.”

“Can’t blame him. I don’t think the suit was designed to look trustworthy.” 

“This way. Can help,” she repeated in Basic, motioning into the interior like she was swimming. “Help you, yes?”

“Help no,” he rasped. “Am I your prisoner?” The bruises on his throat were impressively dark, and still spreading; thank fuck he could talk.

“I am not familiar with any Articles of War he may think we are operating under. Technically, I believe we kidnapped him.”

“Lammy, I love you, but you’re not helping.” She was glad her face wasn't visible.

“Not prisoner. Guest. We help guest?” 

He shook his head. “I'm a prisoner and...you're...I dunno. Big and green and ugly. This’s been the karking weirdest day.”

“I’m going to carry him,” she decided, stepping towards him. He flinched away, losing his balance and flailing for a grip on the wall before landing hard on the floor of the airlock.

"Fuck. Forcefuck a Sith - ” He broke off into painful coughing.

“What?”

“It karkin’ hurt, OK?” He was poking between his armour plates, cautiously.

"Help now?” 

“Karkin’ hell ouch!” Broken ribs? She hadn't thought she'd landed on him that hard.

"Help now."

"Yeah, yeah. Alright." 

She moved forward again, trying to telegraph her movements, and reached out with one hand. He took it, and she pulled him to his feet. He wobbled a bit, but Sparrow hooked an arm around his shoulders to take most of his weight.

“The karkin’ weirdest day,” he repeated to himself and, somewhat confusingly, patted her arm.


End file.
